Rottweiler

What is the difference between a social worker and a Rottweiler?

You can normally get your kids back from a Rottweiler!

Well, the above is true unless of course you are Baby Peter (Baby P) or Victoria Climbe. Neither of them had a chance of being looked after by someone who had their interests as paramount, as is the fundamental principle of the Children Act 1989. And both infants of course had the misfortune of coming (or rather not) under the child protection monitoring of Haringey Council – that place where social workers are generally unmanaged, not supported and victimised by more senior officers when the proverbial hits the fan.

Do not get me wrong, I am sure that some individuals need the equivalent professional experience of being hung, drawn and quartered but I remain to be convinced that (in the fullness of time) those on the frontline actually did require to be sacked, named, shamed and vilified. I prefer to wait a time to see if (assuming the workers do so) any appeals to the Care Standards Tribunal uphold any unreasonable treatment by the responsible employer and other authorities i.e. the General Social Care Council.

Now the Haringey Director (Sharon Shoesmith) was rather dramatically sacked, named, shamed and vilified – for Gawd sake she is a teacher and not (in social care terms) a child care expert. I know it sounds odd, but yes teachers are not child care experts – if they were I would probably be ‘normal’ and never have become a social worker! The fact is, the Education Agenda (a key focus of Government and its fellow idiots Ofsted) overshadows the shared duty of now combined Education and Children’s (Social) Services in exactly the same way that social care was overshadowed (and still is in adult care) by the Department of Health, when it had the remit of social care services.

Shoesmith never had a hope in hell of competently managing, in all places Haringey, a joint education and children’s social care service portfolio. Nor, frankly do most other local authorities, although there are very notable and much admired exceptions across the country, e.g. Worcestershire, Dudley, Solihull, North Somerset, Wrexham and various others. The fact is that one cannot tack onto some other major portfolio (such as health or education) the responsibilities of child welfare or adult social care. There needs to be a social care portfolio, separate, distinct and properly funded – personally I would outsource the whole sector into private (and I distinguish that from so called ‘voluntary’ sector – private business by another name) business people. In fact I would go even further – privatise the whole of local government. However, that is another debate.

Teachers are teachers, are teachers. Although we have dedicated teachers with responsibility for child protection (an improvement on years ago) it remains a fact that they are focused on education (some might argue against that suggestion) and any training (comparative to social care workers) they have on child protection is limited – indeed it is probably an add-on compulsory module rather than intrinsic to the basic programme. They have no idea whatsoever, background training or first notion of operating a child protection service – so why in the hell are they appointed to manage it? Well the answer of course comes down to politicians, the morons who have not a first clue about social care and less so the particular complexities of child protection. They in turn have relied on the former National Care Standards Commission which was very quickly succeeded by the Commission for Care Inspection and which in turn lost its mandate to regulate (on child care) to, those other morons, Ofsted.

The NCSC as reinvented in the form of the CSCI are generally (sometimes unfairly but mostly correctly) deemed as the end of an error, as distinct from the end of an era. Ofsted may have some competence in education matters but they are on social care regulation likely to become the next incompetents who think they can regulate social care, along with the total fools at the GSCC and its sister organisations in the other 3 UK regions (e.g. the Care Council for Wales – equal dorks to the GSCC).

Ofsted of course, whilst inspecting Haringey Council and knowing Baby P was ruthlessly murdered, gave the Council a positive report following inspection. Ofsted said the Council lied or gave misleading information, but it would not have taken much whit or basic competence to give some very special attention to a local authority who were implicated in the death of Victoria Climbe. Shock, horror the Council tried to cover up its failings. What Ofsted were you doing, you absolute Dorks? It is standard practice for many (not all) Council’s to always put their best foot forward and hide that which would reflect badly on their services. That is why we need inspectors, hopefully with some modicum of insight, intelligence and competence to identify problems. You know, doing your job!

Word has it that Ofsted are to outsource inspection work .Well, it cannot get worse unless they retain inspection in-house. Remember the head of Ofsted is married to a Labour MP who (shock horror) fiddled his Commons allowance. It’s incredible how a senior labour MP can find and marry a simple idiot from Ofsted who is not only a public joke but in -house regarded as a complete jerk, or so I am reliably informed. Obviously, in society terms there is some unwritten but magic rule that determines that idiots will meet and copulate with equally idiotic partners – I hate to think what the offspring might turn out like. I cannot go there, the thought is too scary.